If This Book Exists You're in the Wrong Universe--A John Dave and Amy Novel Read online

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  For Ginger the Dog, who is now barking at the garbage trucks in Heaven

  BEFORE WE BEGIN THE STORY, PLEASE CONTACT THE AUTHOR IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN PURCHASING ANY OF THE FOLLOWING ITEMS:

  * A Haunted and/or Cursed Glass Patio Table

  In good condition, the haunting/curse can be mitigated with any common tablecloth. It doesn’t make a noise or anything, but the reflection in the glass is delayed by exactly twenty-four hours. For example, this morning I sat and ate cereal while staring at my phone, but in the reflection, I saw myself as I was at that time yesterday (eating cereal and staring at my phone while wearing a slightly cleaner version of this shirt). This can have unexpected consequences; the previous owner was a woman whose brunch was once disrupted by the sight of another woman’s ass pressed against the surface from the other side. Specifically, it was the ass of the owner’s young housekeeper, rocking back and forth in the act of lovemaking. The sex partner, the reflection revealed, was the table owner’s husband. The glass is very strong; the previous owner tried to shatter it with a baseball bat, a brick, and a Range Rover, none of which left a scratch. One leg is a little shorter than the rest, so it does wobble, but you can stick a matchbook down there or something.

  PRICE: $75 OBO

  * An Autobiography of Ernest Hemingway Entitled A Congenital Liar That Appears to Be from an Alternate Dimension

  Copyrighted 1973, twelve years after the man died in our universe. WARNING: It’s kind of boring and also makes the author sound like a real dick.

  PRICE: $5 OBO

  * A DVD Box Set of a Ken Burns Documentary About a 1978 Mission to the Moon to Recover the Corpses of the Apollo 11 Astronauts

  Also from an alternate dimension, I guess; also boring. Disc 4 has some scratches and may not play in your machine.

  PRICE: $10 OBO

  * A Growing Chinchilla Coat

  As in, the fur continues to grow. My friend John wore it for a while, says it is very warm, but he got tired of having to trim it every week.

  PRICE: $50 OBO

  * A Rare (?) Copy of Purity Warrior Magazine

  The June 2011 issue, again appears to be from another reality or whatever. The cover depicts victims being crucified in front of a strip club under the headline, “The Consecration of New Orleans”; includes articles on how to detect and report sins committed by your neighbor (“Fornicators will frequently refuse eye contact and wear dark clothing”) and a list of ways to punish a child who has befriended a heretic (“#4. Simulate the fires of Hell by pressing a heated clothes iron against their most sensitive patch of skin!”). It’s all pretty gross, but the ads are hilarious.

  PRICE: $3 OBO

  * A “Cursed” PlayStation 2 Console

  Causes all characters in all games to appear nude aside from their shoes and socks. Includes copies of Madden NFL 2005, Wild Arms 4, and Summer Heat Beach Volleyball. NOTE: Has not been tested with any games other than those, so I guess it’s possible the console is normal and only those three games are cursed.

  PRICE: $25 OBO, games included. No memory card.

  * 62 Supposedly Haunted/Possessed/Cursed Dolls of Various Types and Sizes

  Call for pricing and details.

  * A “Cursed” Camera

  An early-2000s Canon Rebel. Does not function as a regular camera. The previous owner claimed when she used it to photograph her home, the house in the photos was much larger, with new siding and neat hedges. When her husband used it to photograph his Toyota Corolla, the photo displayed it as a cocaine-white 1980s-era Lamborghini Countach. When I tried to test the camera by taking a mirror selfie with it, I saw only a normal photo of myself, but with a much larger penis. That must have broken the curse, because the camera now only produces that exact photo no matter who is using it (my girlfriend, Amy, and my friend John both tried it).

  PRICE: $5 OBO

  [Contact info redacted]

  And now, we begin our tale …

  Wait, one more thing:

  A NOTE TO THE ROSSMAN FAMILY REGARDING REIMBURSEMENT FOR THEIR COOLER

  “This is really about my wife,” said the man with the parasite gnawing on his skull. “I’ll let her explain.”

  He nodded to the chair next to him, where absolutely no one was sitting, then waited in silence like he was letting his “wife” speak. John, Amy, and I exchanged glances, none of us quite sure what to do.

  The man appeared to be in his early fifties and had the kind of sad, droopy features that made him look like God hadn’t finished inflating him. He had shown up at my apartment two minutes ago saying he’d been dropped off by the police, who apparently hadn’t stuck around to explain. He was now sitting at my kitchen table with me, Amy, and the empty chair, John leaning on the counter and fidgeting with the red, white, and blue novelty cowboy hat in his hands.

  The guy was now looking at us expectantly, like he was waiting for us to reply to whatever his invisible wife had just said. The parasite made soft grinding noises like an inmate surreptitiously sawing through prison bars. It was chewing away more of his skull, I guess—it had already made quite a hole up there. The parasite, or whatever word you’d use to describe the creature attached to the dude’s head, had a body about the size of two fists, its sleek carapace a vivid purple. It had six long, black segmented legs, covered in bristles. It kind of looked like somebody had glued half a dozen fat centipedes to one of Prince’s codpieces. The creature’s legs were wrapped tightly around the man’s face, one running under his nose like a mustache. Around its purple body was a ring of several eyes that twitched back and forth as if scanning the room, each moving and blinking at different intervals. Under the creature, I could see a sliver of the man’s exposed, pink brain, surrounded by blood-matted hair. The victim seemed to not feel this at all and in general was clearly unaware of the creature’s presence.

  Amy finally broke the silence, bless her. “I’m sorry, can you explain why the police brought you here, again?”

  The “here” she referred to was our apartment, which was small enough that the table we were sitting around overlapped the borders of the kitchenette, dining room, and living room. In general, I’m not sure either we or the apartment made for a reassuring first impression. Only two of the four kitchen chairs matched. Behind me, a window air conditioner was making a noise like it was being dragged down a gravel road. John was in the process of placing his garish American flag cowboy hat back atop his head; his outfit included a T-shirt featuring a photo of himself in which he was wearing the same hat and T-shirt he wore in real life. So the John in the photo was wearing a shirt featuring John wearing the photo of John wearing that shirt created a recursion that presumably continued for infinity. Below it was
a pair of denim shorts that were too small. Much too small.

  “Weren’t you listening?” said the guy, suddenly exasperated. “Why does nobody listen? Eve and I went out to eat lunch at Loew’s Steaks. The place was packed, because of the Fourth. We waited for an hour for a table. I sit down, we both order, the waitress brings my food but nothing for Eve. We ask politely what’s going on with her order, and the bitch talks to me and just ignores Eve completely. I demanded to talk to a manager. He comes over and does the same, won’t even look at her. Right, honey?”

  He glanced to the empty chair, then nodded in confirmation.

  “Right,” he continued. “So, at this point, I’ll admit I got a little agitated. Some words were exchanged. Long story short, the cops come, smirking at us while we try to tell the story. Like they think it’s funny. They take us to the hospital for some damned reason; that was a total waste of time. I talk to a doctor and the doctor turns around and calls the cops again. Nobody will give me a straight answer, like everybody’s in on the joke but us. The cops finally bring me here and tell me to do whatever you say. They actually giggled as they drove off. I thought they were taking me to the loony bin…”

  He trailed off as he glanced around at the apartment, scrutinizing it, now doing the exact same thing the purple creature on his head had seemingly done a moment ago: sizing us up. The man noted the centerpiece on the kitchen table, a glass sphere in a brass frame with a floating severed finger inside it. The finger was pointed right back at him, wobbling slightly as it hovered in the center. He then looked toward the counter, where there was a rusty iron box about the size of a human head, with a ragged hole where something had clawed its way out. Next to it was an oversize glass jar, half-full of crinkled dollar bills with a masking tape label that said:

  “I’VE GOT A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS” JAR

  “Who are you people?”

  I said, “Oh, that’s John. This is Amy. My name is David. We, uh…”

  “We work with the police sometimes,” finished Amy. Well, that was definitely one way to put it.

  The man seemed skeptical. It probably didn’t help that I was wearing a T-shirt bearing a crudely drawn Stars and Stripes behind the words THIS FLAG NEVER FLAGS in a bombastic font (John had found it at a garage sale). Amy was holding a white straw hat and pink sunglasses in her lap, securing them with her right hand. She wasn’t holding anything in her left because it didn’t exist—that arm ended in a stump at the wrist. Old car accident. She was wearing so much sunscreen that the sweet chemical coconut stink was giving me a headache. When this guy had arrived, we had been on the way out to get a spot for the fireworks at the lake, and Amy knew she had to go in prepared, having descended from a tribe of freckled redheads in some sunless part of the world.

  The parasite squeezed its legs around our visitor’s head, digging furrows into his cheeks. I knew from experience that none of the parties involved in this incident—this guy, the cops, the doctors, the steak house waitstaff—had been able to see the little purple monster.

  John lifted his patriotic Stetson and ran his hand through his hair, which at the moment was long enough to tickle his shoulders. “Let’s back up,” he said, replacing the hat. “Now, your name is…”

  “Lou. This is Eve, like I said.”

  John glanced at the empty chair. “Sure. Uh, can I get you something to drink? Dave, what do we have?”

  “Hmm, well, we have the beers out in the cooler in the van. In here we have, uh, tap water that kind of tastes like it came out of a squirt gun, some warm cans of the Walmart Dr. Pepper knockoff, Dr. Thunder, a bottle of 1985 vintage Austrian wine, and two cases of that Dan Aykroyd Crystal Head vodka—”

  “Am I free to go?” asked Lou, somehow ignoring this amazing offer. “Why is everybody treating me like I got caught with a damned dirty bomb at the Vatican? It was a ruckus at a restaurant. Who cares? No punches got thrown. Or none that connected, anyhow. I don’t know what’s happening here.”

  “Is it okay if we ask a few questions?” asked Amy. “How long have you and Eve been together?”

  “Why do you need to know that?”

  “Please, this will only take a minute. We are actually here to help.”

  I was sure Amy believed that, but it seemed clear to me that regardless of what we did, this dude was already dead.

  “Been with her about five months. Married for two. It’s not official; got somebody local to do the ceremony back in May. So what?”

  “And this problem, people acting like they don’t want to acknowledge Eve, is this the first time it’s happened? And if not, when did it start?”

  Instead of answering, the man deferred to the empty chair, like his wife was answering instead.

  When she’d apparently finished, he said, “I’ll take her word for it. My memory’s not so good these days. Chemo messes with your brain cells. But like she said, she doesn’t go out much. Got the agoraphobia, on top of her disability. Doesn’t like crowds. But I told her weeks ago, we’re going out for the Fourth, so get yourself right in the head. Do whatever you’ve got to do, because we’re going out in public and we’re gonna enjoy the holiday. That’s no way for somebody to live, cooped up like that.”

  I asked, “What was her response?”

  “Just what I’d expected. She pitched a fit. I waited for it to blow over and told her this was what we were doing, if I had to carry her out of the house.” He smiled at the empty chair. “She eventually came around.”

  I found myself staring at the parasite and realized it was making eye contact with me with about three of its eyes. It’s entirely possible that up to that moment, it thought it was as invisible to me as it was to everyone else, and now knew otherwise.

  What is your game here? I thought to myself, not entirely sure the parasite couldn’t hear it.

  I’ve been calling the creature a “parasite” because 1) half of all known living creatures are parasites, so that’s always a fairly safe guess, and 2) it was allowing this guy to continue walking around and functioning as normal while it fed on him. That’s what parasites do: climb on and leave the host healthy enough to do the hunting and gathering and fighting. It’s a sound strategy if you can pull it off. As for why it would make him hallucinate a wife, I wasn’t sure but also didn’t particularly care.

  I glanced down at my phone to check the time. We needed to get going; the good sitting spots around the lake would fill up fast (under the trees, where Amy wouldn’t get roasted alive). I’m sorry if this seems cold, but it’s not like this guy is the only one walking around with an interdimensional parasite leaching off his system. You’ve probably met somebody in that very situation in the last month. Hell, some of the people reading this are in that situation. Have you ever found yourself obsessively watching a TV show you don’t actually enjoy? That probably means you’re just watching your parasite’s favorite show.

  John said, “I want to try something, if that’s okay.” He dug into his front pocket and pulled out a quarter. He addressed the empty chair where “Eve” was supposedly sitting and said, “I’m going to toss this quarter to you. I want you to catch it and toss it back to me.”

  Lou immediately looked outraged. “I’m sorry, is that some kind of sick joke?”

  “It’s just a test. It will only take a moment.”

  “How do you expect her to catch it?” shouted Lou. “Look at her. You can clearly see that her arms don’t work. Got the nerve damage, on account of her disorder.”

  John dropped the coin to the table and sighed, defeated. He glanced at me with a look that said it all: This is one of the few days of the year when this town’s collective day drinking isn’t considered a tragedy, and we’re missing it.

  To Lou, I said, “This may seem like another odd question, but do you get headaches?”

  “No,” he replied over the gravelly rasp of the parasite munching on his cranium. “Why would I get headaches?”

  John suddenly got that alarming look he gets whe
n he thinks he has an idea, then positioned himself behind the empty chair and said, “All right, let me try this. Just stay where you are, Eve. Are you ready? Here we go.”

  John pulled the chair away from the table, then picked up and lifted it above his head.

  “Whoa!” said John. “Look at that. I’m the world’s strongest man, apparently, because I just lifted your wife above my head like it was nothing.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” barked Lou. “She’s standing right there. What’s going on here? Am I being filmed? Is this a prank?”

  I said, “I’m sorry. You’ve caught us at a bad time. We were just about to head to the lake to do that thing where we celebrate America’s birthday by terrifying all of its dogs, so we’ve not been able to go through our normal meticulous process for evaluating a situation like yours. We’re not trying to be rude, we’re really not, but we have a narrow window in which I can get just drunk enough to not care that nobody has invented any new fireworks for the last thousand years.”

  “Then let us go,” said Lou. “Hell, that’s where we were headed. We were going to head out after we’d eaten. So why are we here?”

  I looked pleadingly toward Amy and then John, silently soliciting ideas. Normally, the ideas were Amy’s department, but she likely couldn’t see the parasite and so probably didn’t understand what exactly we were dealing with. John probably could see it, but I think he was out of ideas after the chair thing.

  I sighed and said, “Look, I’m just going to rip off the Band-Aid. What if I told you that the reason people aren’t interacting with your wife is because she doesn’t exist?”

  Amy recoiled. Usually we would try to use a little more finesse with this kind of thing, but, hey, you get what you pay for.

  Lou smirked. “Now I know there are cameras recording this. Where are they? Is this for YouTube or TV? What, you get everybody together to work out some elaborate prank, and then I win a Hooters gift card at the end?”